


Transformation Sequence Initiated

by quidamling



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Werewolves, halloween fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1992747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quidamling/pseuds/quidamling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lennox is injured while out on a mission, but it's minor and he carries on.  When he returns home, his wife finds that more has changed about her husband than she is really prepared to handle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transformation Sequence Initiated

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:** Transformation Sequence Initiated  
>  **Rating:** PG-13  
>  **Verse:** Transformers Movie (Post Revenge of the Fallen and/or ignoring DotM)  
>  **Genre:** B Horror Movie  
>  **Characters:** Will Lennox, Ironhide, Captain Graham, Sarah Lennox, Annabelle Lennox, assorted other Autobots and NEST soldiers.  
>  **Warnings:** Mild gore/blood, profanity.  
>  **Other Notes:** You can’t reason with the inexplicable.

Decepticons, Will had decided, were not simply evil, they took exceptional delight in his own personal torment. To a mech, they had an irritating ability to make planetfall in places that were either an utter bitch to get men and supplies to, or frustratingly public. This signal fell into the first category.

Lennox, suited up to his eyeballs in cold weather gear, padded through the old forest of somewhere-well-off-the-map Northwestern Canada. At his six, Ironhide waded through the deep drifts, following Will snow-shoeing on top of the thin ice crust. The Cybertronian was apparently keeping himself warm by pure heat of his grumbling about all of the ice crystals reflecting and ruining the precision of his scanners. Will did not really care about the difficulties, he simply wanted to find this new arrival, offer the standard greeting, and deal with it by standard protocol so he could get back somewhere and thaw out his limbs.

“ _Major,_ ” came Captain Graham’s light British lilt, “ _any luck, sir?_ ”

“No, Graham,” Will replied. Thank fucking Christ for throat mics, he had no desire to strain to hear over the howling swirl of wind or fumble with buttons when any exposed skin could freeze in a matter of minutes. He glanced back at Ironhide, and the mech’s face went blank as he concentrated on his scans. When his optics cleared, ‘Hide pointed quickly towards their right. “Wait,” Lennox corrected, “we’re turning towards your 20, eyes peeled for it bolting to break through.”

 _“Yessir,”_ Graham replied, _"Optimus is still point, Ratchet has-”_ The line went silent, both Ironhide and Lennox tensed as gunfire echoed across the otherwise muffled landscape.

“Graham, dammit, _Graham_!” Will swore, breaking into a run in the direction of the second squad. He did not need to confirm that his partner was following, hearing Ironhide snarling behind him as the mech had to dodge trees while he slogged through high drifted snow.

“ _Bloody hell!_ ” Graham’s panting cut back over their comm lines when there was a break in fire to check in. “ _Thing is slippery, Prime’s on it, sir. Fuck! Moving north! Go, Smi-_ ”

It was rare that Lennox could make better time than one of the mechs, but he was just barely pulling ahead of Ironhide, trying to get to his fellow NEST members and cinch the net closed. The snow whirled thickly with a low drone of wind, pattering loudly against his goggles. He just heard the scratch of his snowshoe against rock when Ironhide barked his name.

With everything around him a near uniform white, he only knew he was falling because his stomach made a flip into his throat. A momentary eternity later, he hit the bottom of the drop-off and saw stars dancing across the snowy landscape.

Ironhide jumped down from the rock ledge and landed beside Will, jarring the ground with his weight.

“Lennox? Lennox, are you online?” ‘Hide murmured, brushing some of the snow away from around the Major.

Will groaned, “Yeah… yeah, Ironhide.” He started slowly checking over his limbs and taking stock. His head hurt, and his left shoulder burned, but at least the Ranger felt like he was mostly whole. Using his right hand, Lennox pulled his goggles around his throat and blinked up at Ironhide. “My shoulder…”

The mech grunted, optics sweeping over the arm and snarling at the tinge of red staining cloth and snow. “You’re bleeding. Medium depth laceration from your attempted flight.”

“I wasn’t trying - stop being helpful, Ironhide.”

“ _Lennox? Damn Yank, where are you?_ ” At least the laughter in Graham’s voice was a good sign. “ _Devil Doc and Big Buddah handled the new guy. We’re good to pull out._ ”

It took Will a moment to find the coordination to access his comm. “Acknowledged, Graham…” He took a few steadying breaths, then continued. “Take point on that. I’ll be a while.”

“ _Lennox?_ ” Graham asked, his voice suddenly quieter with concern.

Will groped for an explanation besides that he essentially ran of a small cliff edge in a fit of snowblind suicidal mania. “Minor trouble. I’m gonna need a band-aid when we regroup.”

“ _Plaster, sir. The correct term is_ plaster, _you git,_ ” the Captain smarted back fondly. “ _You got 10 before we come looking._ ”

“Fair enough,” Will managed a light chuckle. “But Ironhide should have me covered. Lennox, out.” With a hiss, he turned his attention to groping around for the offending rock or stick or whatever he had tried to impale himself on. After a few minutes shuffling around in the snow, Will picked up something and held it out to Ironhide with a questioning hum.

‘Hide moved to kneel beside the Ranger and grunted in the affirmative. “That’s it. Carries traces of your blood.”

At least the snow was starting to settle, letting Lennox lay the full weight of his eyeroll on his Cybertronian comrade in arms. “If you’re my own personal CSI, shouldn’t you take off your sunglasses and make a bad pun, there?”

One optic ridge twitched as Ironhide dove the internet for the reference, then he snorted explosively and shook his helm as Will pushed himself to sitting. “Not interested, Lennox,” he grumbled, narrowing his optics to rescan the object while Lennox turned it over in his hand.

“Fine,” Will huffed, good hand holding his shoulder and staring at the offending item in the other. The bit of rock was worn, but the longer that Lennox studied it, the more it looked like ages ago it had been intentionally shaped to be… something. There were old, faded marks carved into the stone, one end shaped into a long, wicked point. “But any idea what this is?”

Ironhide peered at the object and grunted. “It’s the language of one of the ancient tribes of this area. Talks about weapons to fend of wolf demons.”

Looking at the item with that hint, Will could almost see it. A blade, long forgotten but obviously still sharp, and the faint traces of a wolf head handle. “Hnn, accidental archeology,” he mused to himself. “But wolf demons, really?”

With a shrug, Ironhide glanced around them. “Don’t ask me. Jazz was the cultural one.” When Will dragged himself to his feet and scowled up at him, ‘Hide huffed and widened his scans around the area. After a long moment, he finally met Will’s look. “There are guard markers, this place is marked off as a refuge. A last bastion.” He tapped the plate at his temple and overlay a holograph on the landscape, it highlighted carvings in the rocks obscured by snow, and a clearing traced out on the ground. There was a larger wolf totem buried in drifts near the cliff; snarling and bound with rope, flanked by two figures with spears. Lennox had narrowly missed breaking his neck by landing on the unforgiving carved stone.

“Shit,” Will snarled, then blushed guiltily even through his winter gear. “Great, way to desecrate someone’s emergency bunker,” he chastised himself. He set the blade by its larger, snow-covered brethren and backed away with palms outstretched, as if it would bound after him like an abandoned puppy if he did not attempt to placate it. “Sorry, sorry…” Lennox found himself apologizing to the very location. Covering his shoulder again, he looked up at Ironhide. “Alright, alright, let’s get out of here before I insult their momma’s on top of everything else.”

Ironhide shutter-blink-rolled his optics, but nodded in the affirmative. “Yes. We only have six more minutes before Captain Graham comes hunting.”

“Point,” Will replied, resettling his goggles and trudging towards their rendezvous and extraction point. He just wanted to check on his men, get warm, get patched up and get home.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Three weeks, four stitches, one hell of an infection and subsequent round of antibiotics, seven plane jumps, Will had lost count of how many miles and more paperwork than he wanted to even acknowledge later… he was finally back home. _HOME,_ home, safely at his civilian address with his wife and child.

He had mostly fumbled through the initial adjustment that came with every leave, where Will lived like a guest in his own home, skulking around the outskirts of the normal schedules and routines and rituals that he no longer knew. It was always a challenge relearning to live with normal human beings instead of crazy military types who were only _more_ prone to batshit insanity because of being associated with NEST. Sarah had the patience of a Saint, allowing her husband to prowl their home in those first few hours as if he was reacquainting himself with his territory, gauging his mood and letting him either monopolize or hide from Annabelle as he needed, and putting up with him raiding the fridge of strange things unavailable and apparently sacred on Diego Garcia, like applesauce.

But her crazy husband always managed to settle down, like he had now. After finishing up in the kitchen she wandered into the living room and found Will sprawled on the couch with a bathed and pajama-ed Annabelle dozing on his chest, neither paying any attention to the dvd of dopey guys in bright costumes singing about ‘sharing is fun’ on the television.

Sarah draped herself over the back of the couch and played with Will’s hair. “Ready to put her down, baby?”

“Hmm?” he grunted muzzily.

His eyes swiveled slowly towards Sarah’s, the normal warm brown of his irises seemed faded, the little crow’s feet around his eyes deeper and more pinched than his usual smirking amusement. She frowned and cupped the side of his jaw. “You feeling ok?”

Will squirmed in place, arching his sore lower back. He moved a hand to hold Annabelle and make sure he was not disturbing her. “Like an old man,” he admitted, “it supposed to be a storm tonight or something?”

Chuckling softly, Sarah shook her head, her husband had enough old wounds and scars that he had every right to grumble about bum joints knowing the weather, but he rarely did. “Not that I know of, hun. Here,” she picked up the limp squid that was their sleepy daughter and straightened, watching Will hiss and press his fingers to his face. “Sinus headache, too?”

“Killer,” he agreed with a low grumble.

“Take a couple Tylenol, should help both,” Sarah crooned, settling Anna on her hip. “Crawl in bed, hopefully Bella will go down easy. I’ll lock up and be there in a minute.”

He groaned and swung his feet to the floor, nodding gingerly. “Yes, ma’am, good call. Thanks sweetie.”

Will stood and trudged upstairs. He padded through their bedroom to the medicine cabinet in their bathroom while Sarah slipped Annabelle into her crib then circled the house shutting things off. Pulling out one of the pill bottles, he downed two with a palmfull of water from the tap. Leaning heavily on the sink, he stared at his own reflection a moment, then massaged slowly at the pressure radiating up around his brow and down the bridge of his nose. Moving back into the bedroom, he stripped down to his boxers and pulled an old, worn t-shirt over his head. Will shuffled to his side of the bed, pulled down the covers and eased onto the mattress. It took some rolling and stretching, but he got about as comfortable as he could, and managed to fall asleep not long after Sarah finished her nightly rituals and joined him in bed.

Lennox woke up a few short hours later, feeling like someone was pulling out his spine like a zipper, that his skull was going to explode and that he was going to be violently ill. At least with the moonlight shining brightly outside the window he could leave the light off instead of waking Sarah. He groaned low in his throat and staggered from the bed into the bathroom, muttering to himself about a stomach flu. Dropping to the floor, he rested his back against the tub, hunched in a shuddering ball with his arms and forehead propped on the toilet seat.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sarah jerked awake at a crash, and immediately groped for Will in the bed beside her. She found the sheets rumpled but cold. There was another loud clatter from down the hall and she sat up, peering around the moon-bright room. Her first thought, as she glanced around in worry, was that a burglar had broken into the house.

“Will!” she hissed, wondering where he could have gotten to, and why he was not at this very moment taking a baseball bat to the intruder. Slowly, she slipped from the bed and padded to the door to peek into the hall. At least there was nothing and no one there. Annabelle’s door was still closed and the baby monitor at their bedside was silent. “Will?” Sarah asked again, the fog of sleep was clearing and she remembered Ironhide would be parked out front. No one was getting into the house without their Guardian’s knowledge and permission.

That left the mystery of her wayward husband. She turned with a gasp to the sound of scrabbling in the bathroom. Whatever was causing the disturbance was in there. It took her a moment to square her shoulders and pace down the hall. Perhaps, she thought, Will had woken up and tried a shower to help with the aches he was complaining about earlier.

“What if he slipped and fell in the tub?” Sarah murmured to herself, concern for her spouse finally enough to get her moving in the direction of the strange sounds.

Just in case she was overreacting to nothing, Sarah forced herself to knock on the door. “Will, hun, are you in there?”

The sounds stopped for a moment, then she heard scratching and another thump.

“Alright, Ranger, what the heck are you up to?” Sarah grumbled. It was late, this was definitely going to wake the baby, and she was tired of not getting an answer. She turned the knob and opened the door. The bathroom was lit in the dim silver-grey of the moonlight, but the light was not on. “And why,” Sarah asked as she flipped on the lights, “are you sitting around in the dark?”

She sucked in her breath and went absolutely still.

That was not Will.

That was not human.

The thing that turned to her as she turned on the light was huge, furred and muscular and powerful, but tangled in a mess of the shower curtains dragged from the rod. Deep golden eyes stared at her, a long brown tail held stiff and bristled, tan shells of ears twitched, orienting to Sarah and the sound of her pounding heart.

For a moment, Sarah simply stared, caught in that primordial prey instinct to freeze in the presence of danger; what appeared to be the largest wolf she could possibly imagine in her bathroom certainly counted as a dire threat.

The wolf bared long canines with a low rumbling growl in its throat, and took a step towards Sarah. The crinkle of plastic drew her attention, breaking her gaze from those yellow eyes and she finally seemed to remember how to move. She groped for the doorknob and tugged the door closed, her heart in her stomach.

She was sure that she was going to feel the sink of sharp teeth into her body, but the slippery shower curtain slowed the wolf just enough that she was able to slam the door closed. A fraction of a second later she heard the sharp thud of the heavy body hitting the door. The doorframe rattled with growls and the sound of claws scratching on wood as she tried to catch her breath.

Annabelle. She had to get her daughter and get out of the house.

Sarah bolted for her daughter’s room, scooping up her baby, blankets and all, and hugging her to her breast. “Shhh, shhh, shhh,” she murmured absently before the girl even started fussing, she dared to duck her head back into the hall to peek at the bathroom door. It was still closed, but she clearly saw a crack and the flash of claws around the edge as the wolf dug at the wood. She had to go, now, before it broke through.

The stairs were taken two at a time, and Sarah burst from the door and onto the porch already calling Ironhide’s name.

“Mmm?” the big TopKick replied, rising curiously on his shocks. His charge reeked of stress and fear, prompting him to rise up to his bipedal form with a rising hum of his cannons. “Sarah? What is the matter?”

“W-Ironhide… there’s- there’s a wolf in the house,” Sarah panted, racing across the yard and tucking close behind Ironhide’s leg. “And where’s Will!?”

Ironhide snorted, focusing his scanners on the interior of the house. “He is inside-”

“With that _thing_?” Sarah asked, then started bouncing Annabelle against her chest as the little girl, confused about being tugged from her bed and carted into the cold, started to whimper and fuss. “No, no, it’s ok, baby, it’s ok.”

The sound of rending and splintering wood finally reached her ears and Sarah pressed her fist to her mouth. “Where’s Will, if that thing broke out of the bathroom…”

“But, Sarah,” Ironhide scowled, glancing down at Sarah and the baby. “Nevermind. He’s coming down now.”

She had not thought to close the front door behind her, too wrapped up in getting the baby to the safety of their Guardian’s shadow. The darkened entryway she could see seemed so foreboding, and Sarah tensed, hoping to see Will come running out to tell her that he was alright, that everything was alright. What she saw instead were those same yellow eyes that seemed to glow and drag her in. The wolf sniffed and slunk from the porch towards her, hackles raised and all but slavering.

“Ironhide! Shoot it!” Sarah cried, relaxing her grip on her daughter enough to thump at plating.

“But, Sarah, I…” he shifted, mirroring the creature’s stalk to keep between it and Sarah.

The wolf lunged, jaws snapping. Ironhide dropped to a knee and batted it back with a huge grey hand.

“Kill it! Fucking now!” she all but screamed. “It could have killed Will in there!”

Ironhide snorted at the animal as it tumbled clear across the yard, then shook itself and rose back to its feet. “This is not just some wolf, Sarah. There is something about it…”

Sarah snarled, “Then Ratchet can dissect the corpse, just shoot!” She slapped his cannon, charged and warm, but not primed to fire.

“Sarah,” Ironhide tried again, scanners flicking over the creature even as he pivoted to repel another pounce. Again, the animal was sent tumbling back, this time with a yelp. “This _animal_ reads as _Will_ ,” Ironhide snarled.

Sarah barked an incredulous laugh and pressed Annabelle more between herself and Ironhide’s leg, “That monster, is not my husband.” Her frustration at Ironhide, unwilling to _shoot_ something for the first time since she met him, was palpable.

Ironhide sniffed and snorted smoke into the night air. “This. Is. Will. It smells like the Major.”

“Simply because he ate him! Or was rolling around in our house!” Sarah snarled.

“No, Sarah, on my spark, it has the same olfactory tags as Lennox.”

“No. No! I refuse to believe it,” she replied, slightly frantic.

The wolf took that as its opportunity, feinting around Ironhide’s hip and diving for Sarah. Ironhide roared, his determination that it was Will beneath the fur, claws and teeth or not, it was threatening two of his charges. Sarah screamed and hunched over her baby, waiting for the weight to hit her and teeth to tear into flesh. At least she could spare her daughter…

The pain never came. She felt a brush, a hiss of motion, then heard a sharp yelp. Sarah forced herself to inhale and exhale slowly before straightening and daring a glance around Ironhide. Unable to hold back the gasp, she covered her mouth with her hand. The wolf lay crumpled at the base of the big elm just at the edge of their property. Ironhide glanced down at her and made a soft rumble of apology, then turned dim optics back to the creature.

“It’s… Ironhide it’s not…” while she had no desire to go and check on the thing, the sound it had made truly sounded like it was in pain.

“No,” Ironhide grated out, stepping around and behind Sarah to drop back into his crouch. This time, he mantled over her like a possessive bird. “It is alive.”

True to Ironhide’s words, the animal twitched. First, it dragged its head up and glared at them, then it gathered its limbs beneath it and struggled to its feet. The shoulder nearest the tree was smeared with blood, and when it put that foot down it snarled before holding it close against its chest.

Sarah stared in almost morbid fascination. She tucked the blanket more around the baby and pressed back against Ironhide’s chest.

The wolf limped a few steps towards them, but Ironhide’s growl finally seemed to make it think better of attacking. It turned, ungainly on only three paws, and loped into the forest.

“Ironhide?”

“Yes, Sarah,” the mech replied, placing his hand protectively in front of her.

“Will is in the house somewhere. He’s alright, right?”

Ironhide snorted softly, and checked the house, just to be certain. “No, no he is not…”

Sarah started crying and Ironhide began the comm calls to Prime and Ratchet.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Will woke up, cold to the very marrow in his bones and sore like he had been hit repeatedly with a truck. He groaned, rolling to try and ease the kink in his back, then screamed when it shot fire up his arm. Staring up at the pinkening sky, Lennox tried to understand what was going on.

He was outside.

He was outside and lying in the woods.

He was outside and lying in the woods, _naked_.

This hopefully fell into the realm of the worst pranks ever played on anyone by anyone. It took a few minutes, but he was able to gingerly sit up and look over his arm. It was almost definitely broken, but all he could do was cradle it to his chest as he dragged himself to his feet. At least he recognized where he was, at the back of his property, on one of the hunting paths he and Ironhide used for training.

Only a few short miles home. The problem was that a few short miles was anything but _short_ when one was cold, naked, and hurting.

A little over an hour later, Lennox emerged from the forest into the yard, only to hear the familiar sounds of charging and cocking weapons. The entire NEST crew was there, Prime, towering over his roofline, Ratchet kneeling by the porch, Ironhide standing feet apart with both cannons humming, and interspersed were the human members. All of them were pointing guns directly at him.

Will tried to raise his hands in the universal _Holy shit_ or _I’m harmless, please don’t shoot_ gesture. Unfortunately, he could not brace his arm, maintain some semblance of decency, and put his hands up all at the same time. In fact, he could only do one of those things, and the broken arm managed to win out by a fraction.

“So I’m guessing something truly fucked up happened last night, huh?” All he remembered was feeling awful last night, and the confusion of waking up this morning. He looked from Prime, to Epps, and finally to Graham, standing on the porch beside Sarah. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry.”

Epps slipped closer, glancing briefly back at Prime and Ratchet. “Well, Doc Bot?”

Ratchet grumbled, “Medical scans are on par with Lennox’s records, though the deviation is fifteen percent higher than the normal variance between scans.” He reached into his leg compartment and tossed Epps a blanket. “Get him wrapped up, and I need to look at his arm.”

Prime rumbled pensively, then gestured and quietly ordered, “Stand down, everyone.”

Lennox gladly accepted the blanket, and Sarah’s gentle hug when she ran down to his side. “Talk to me, baby,” he pleaded.

Sarah shook her head and started guiding him over to Ratchet. “You’re probably not going to believe this. Now sit. Good boy.”

The chuckles from around the yard did not bode well…

**Author's Note:**

> Random: This chunk of writing started as the exposition for a much larger "fuzzy-'verse" that has Will more benevolent and sentient as a wolf, but I doubt I will ever manage to polish the huge sprawling monstrosity enough to post. (Maybe someday! But in the meantime... Eep!) So I flipped it around and made it into this one-shot.


End file.
